870/1 Yelloway, Premier Travel and National Express Liverpool-Clacton service timetable cover Summer 1979

During 1973 Yelloway and Premier Travel were thinking about expanding facilities in respect of their North West to East Anglia services. The companies were aware that some clients had to travel on other services in order to connect to their joint services. Notably these were from Merseyside (connecting at Manchester), the Potteries (connecting at Leek), East Staffordshire (connecting at Derby), North Leicestershire (connecting at Leicester) etc. The result was the creation of a Liverpool to Clacton-on-Sea service which travelled via the Wirral, Chester, Crewe, the Potteries, Uttoxeter, Burton-on-Trent etc. Whilst it was thought that the interests of the National Bus Company would be covered by Ribble and North Western, it transpired that it was to be Crosville and Midland Red that would be the joint operators with Yelloway and Premier Travel although by 1979, when this timetable was published, NBC had created National Express. Upon arrival at Leicester the service shared common timings with the well established Yelloway/Premier Travel services from Blackpool/Blackburn etc. (I recall Hubert Allen being a little disgruntled when he learned from a regular driver on the 77/78 that the Crosville or Midland Red drivers when going south were getting into Leicester ahead of the 77/78 and by virtue of this fact were, quite innocently, loading the passengers that were there. His claim was that the revenue south of Leicester was shared by the two independents not all four operators!) The service wasn't as successful as hoped and was whittled down over the years resulting in its withdrawal in 1980.